Open Thread

rob- having lived over there and shopped on Fulton even efore the 70’s I have to say there were always lots of stores and a bustling business. Just that except for a few of us, no white folk would go there. I loved Bridge St.- great fabric stores and ABC was the poverty-stricken’s answer to target. i found some neat stuff there on many an occasion. Fulton St. was never abandoned- except by the white people in the gentrified surrounding neighborhoods. But overall, what the article is saying is basically true. Now the denizens of BH, CH and CG think it needs to “lifted up” to their standards. I think that’s a slap in the face to all the business people and customers who made Fulton St. a great shopping district.

My own feeling is that those residents will still not go downtown- crossing Boerum is uncomfortable, sometimes terrifying, and my own feeling is that for those who love their quiet brownstone neighborhoods a big, heavily commercialized business district so close kinda of infringes on the genteel neighborhood fantasies they have. in all the years I lived in that area, I never saw a neighbor down there or even heard it mentioned as a place to shop, or eat (except for Juniors maybe).

thanks MM. but now i have this terrible of image of theWhat rubbing one out on the toilet with these apspirational publications. scary mental image.

*r*

Rob, those are called “aspirational” publications . It’s like reading Vogue Magazine or Elle Decor. The percentage of readers who can actually afford anything withing their covers is rather small, but their readership is quite high. It’s real estate/fashion/decorating porn. You look at it, wish you could be in it, fantasize a bit, put it down and then go about your business. Don’t worry about it.

Being addicted to this site is another issue altogether. Pure masochism.

The Germans bombed my Grannie out of her house. They hit the Fish n Chip shop on the corner too.

“…fulton mall is a stretch of old brooklyn department stores abandoned in the seventies and recolonized in the eighties and nineties by discount electronic stores, discount shoe stores, discount sneaker stores, discount hat stores, stores that sell discounted goods at a discount. there are podiatrists and dental clinics (we specialize in cowards) and places that sell inexpensive jewelry in the shape of fists, fingers, and jesus christ. on fulton street in some places, rents are higher than on madison avanue; fulton street is the third-highest dollar-volume retail district in new york city, with a hundred thousand shoppers a day, putting in, in terms of human activity, on par with fifth avenue, or, by association, the champs-elysees. studies show, however, that the residents of the gentrified neighborhoods that surround downtown brooklyn rarely go to downtown brooklyn. thus, the city and developers deem it “underutilized.”” – A Windstorm in Downtown Brooklyn (was just reading this short story and this struck me as funny). ive never been there! must go!

*r*